23 Comments

more importantly, what does this switch of graphics IP provider imply about ARM's graphics IP, too slow, too power hungry, too big, next IP core (T624/T628) not ready ?

IMO they didn't switch just for the sake of it. I surmmise either the CPU package + ARM graphics was too power hungry/too big, or ARM is not ready with anything other than T604, which doesn't set the world on fire in nexus10 whih gets a fill rate of 1381Mtexels/s in glbenchmak. SGX544MP3@533Mhz can hit more than double that (given similar surround circuitry as in ipad socs), and allowing for its deferred rendering, more again in real world.Samsung is going for really high res screens, so perhaps fill rate is a key issue.Reply

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Why? The Cortex A15 cores are clocked lower iirc, it has 8 cores technically but 4 are low power cores and only one of each core pair can be on at once. The GPU I agree with, this is a higher clocked version of the iPhone GPU which should be well above the Adreno 320. Reply

The Exynos Octa is based on reference reference ARM cortex A15 cores(plus 4 A7 in big little config) so it should deliver roughly ~3 times the performance(with ~2 power usage) of previous gen cortex A9 & hence beats the Snapdragon 600 hands down ! I'm unaware of the actual numbers but with PowerVR SGX 544 MP2 or MP3 config it beats the Adreno 320 & possibly even the upcoming Adreno 330 in the GPU dept as well, this is mere speculation though cause according to some reports the Octa won't fit into the smartphone power envelope(likely to be for tablets in the beginning atleast) unless its heavily throttled like the tegra4 !Reply

What you on about. Adreno 320 is easily better than SGX 544MP2 even at 533Mhz? Heck it's faster than the SGX544MP3 at 266Mhz. Of course it won't be faster than Samsung Exynos version at 533Mhz. But what you said is so incorrect.Reply

Actually A15 only offers 2 times the performance vs A9. But I remember seeing in another post that Cortex A15 offers 3 times the performance of A7 but at 6 times the power consumption. This thing is probably gonna be heavily throttled or they will include a huge battery. Also the MP2 is not faster than the Adreno 320 in the S4 Pro, let alone the speed enhanced Adreno 320 in the Snapdragon 600. Obviously the 600 will get outclassed soon but its okay cuz Qualcomm didn't intend for the 600 to be the best. That's where the 800 comes in. I can't wait to see what the Adreno 330 can do. I'll be keeping an eye on Anandtech when that day comes.Reply

the octa can only use up to 4 of its 8 cores anyways. If the US version gets snapdragon 600 or 800 thats more than enough. What specific reason do you have to have the octa for? All rumors suggest it wouldnt perform all that much better than the new snapdragon coresReply

What's naught about that. Clearly they don't know for sure, and clearly it has been widely reported. All they know for sure is the latest chip from samsung uses powerVR for graphics, and not Mali.Reply

You'll find several sites have reported SPECULATION and RUMOURS and screenshots of ALLEDGED S4 devices running Antutu. It has not been announced. The latest pretty firm suggestion is that Galaxy S4 will use a Qualcomm chip in the USA, and a Samsung chip in the rest of the world.

I cant wait to see how this plays out in the US version...mostly what cpu will be used. If they dont deliver the "octa-core" to US there is going to be so much crying. Personally I'm more of a SG Note fan so it doesn't matter to me, just waiting for the internet to explode.Reply

Well, Imagination Tech must be very happy with this win considering they beaten Mali which was the default choice for Sammy. This shows the capability of PVR 544 core in terms of performance-per-watt compared to Mali at least. Surely, it is a more refined architecture compared to Mali and Sammy cannot license the Geforce cores from Nvidia!.The Octa is a very unusual design and no doubt would be aggresively tweaked for phone application. In a tablet, it would be a real fight with T4 but gpu will certainly be demolished by the GeForce cores. Good to see a new SoC being released and implemented on a new handset. I wish Sammy all the luck with SGS IV.Reply

"Upcoming flagship devices such as the Samsung Galaxy SIV, the Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD, and the Lenovo K900 are soon to follow, making the PowerVR SGX544MP, alongside other existing Series5XTMP cores, the most popular GPU in the mobile and embedded market today."Reply

Perhaps but since my memory is failing me would you provide a(ny) link to back your claim up cause the powerVR configs are really confusing(543/544/554 alongwith MP2/MP3/MP4) atleast as far as I'm concerned ?Reply

1) wrong. All 8 cores can work simultaneously. Just current Linux implementation doesn't support HMP (only SMP currently supported), thus A7+A15 bound by pairs, but it's barely software restriction. There is experimental patches for linux kernel from Linaro group to allow all 8 cores to work at the same time.2) no idea3) There is AMOLED TVs from LG, but i wouldn't recommend to buy it now. AMOLED suffers from short life of blue subpixels (that's the main reason for PenTile in AMOLED). Like in old days with Plasma TV, AMOLED display can be burned out by static pictures.Reply